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Marguerite
SONNET NO. 94
They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heavens graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense,
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed out braves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Note the repetition of the following, we find-they, they,
they, their faces, their excellence, their deeds.
Here Bacon writes that people who have the power to hurt
others but do not do so inherit heaven's graces in contrast to
people who are as stone-unmoved and cold. Summer 5
flowers are sweet but if they become infected with disease they
are worse than weeds and he asks his love Marguerite not to
get infected and do anything to destroy her sweetness. He
warns her that she being as sweet as a flower must guard herself
against corruption.
Bacon in his own writings states that "the corruption of the
best things is the worst."
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